FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 1 



levels of natural or formula diets presently- 

 known. 



Food conversion ratios (FCR) (weight of 

 food fed for 6 weeks/ weight increase) were cal- 

 culated from results in Group IV (calculated on 

 a dry weight basis). Feeding at 109r biomass 

 yielded an FCR of 6.7 and growth increase of 

 109 ^r. On the other hand, feeding at the 15 ^f 

 level produced a 164 ''r growth increase and an 

 FCR of 5.5. Such FCR, although not compar- 

 able to those obtained for vertebrates such as 

 the 1.6 or less for catfish (Andrews, in press), 

 nonetheless represent a significant decrease over 

 the FCR of 10 or greater reported for shrimp 

 fed on natural foods (Fujinaga, 1963) . Further 

 refinement of the FCR for penaeids can un- 

 doubtedly be obtained through procurement of 

 a more suitable pellet, better understanding of 

 exact nutritional requirements of specific nu- 

 trients, and more information on ingestion and 

 assimilation phenomena. 



SUMMARY 



1. Environmental conditions yielding 80 to 

 90% survival in the intensive tank culture of 

 penaeid shrimp encompassed a combination of 

 either no substrate or sand substrate on elevated 

 platforms, air supplied externally by an aeration 

 system, and population density of 40 g/m^. 



2. Diets having balanced complements of pro- 

 teins, lipids, carbohydrates, amino acids, fatty 

 acids, minerals, and vitamins produced only sus- 

 tained biomass levels. 



3. Diets having 69.5^; of the total diet as 

 shrimp meal produced growth increases of 63%. 



4. Examination of soy, casein, and yeast hy- 

 drolysates revealed that a combination of each 

 produced 39 Sr growth increase while an average 

 of 18% resulted from feeding each hydrolysate 

 separately. Hydrolyzed proteins did not yield 

 better growth than intact proteins. 



5. Feeding at 5, 10, and 15 s; of the animals' 

 biomass daily yielded directly proportional 

 growth. A growth increase of 164% was 

 achieved with a fish meal and shrimp meal diet 

 fed at 15% of biomass daily. 



6. Using semipurified pelleted diets, food con- 

 version ratios were reduced by nearly half of 

 that reported for penaeids feeding on clam and 

 other natural foods. 



7. Establishing selected preliminary environ- 

 mental and nutritional requirements for penaeid 

 shrimp resulted in reproducible production of 

 major biomass increase with relatively high sur- 

 vival and low food conversion ratios. 



8. Results from these studies have allowed us 

 to design facilities and experiments for future 

 work with environmental and nutritional factors. 

 Development of an inexpensive diet which will 

 yield rapid and maximum growth will be an es- 

 sential requirement for economical production 

 of penaeid shrimp, 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



The authors wish to sincerely thank Lee H. 

 Knight and his engineering crew for their night 

 and day effort to establish and maintain the fa- 

 cilities and auxiliary power units that were es- 

 sential for this study. In addition, we are grate- 

 ful to Harry Carpenter and his crew for their 

 efforts in general construction and maintenance 

 of our mariculture facilities. 



LITERATURE CITED 



American Fish Farmer & World Aquaculture News. 

 1970. First cultured shrimp harvested at Florida 

 farm. Am. Fish Farmer World Aquacult. News 

 2(1): 7. 

 Anderson, W. W. 



1966. The shrimp fishery of the southern United 

 States. U.S. Fish Wildl. Serv., Fish Leafl. 589, 

 8 p. 

 Andrews, J. W. 



In press. The stocking density and water require- 

 ments for the culture of channel catfish in intens- 

 ively stocked tanks. Foodstuffs. 

 Broom, J. G. 



1969. Pond culture of shrimp on Grand Terre 

 Island, Louisiana, 1962-1968. Gulf Caribb. Fish. 

 Inst. Proc. 21st Annu. Sess., p. 137-151. 

 Dall, W. 



1965. Studies on the physiology of a shrimp, Meta- 

 penaetis sp. (Crustacea: Decapoda: Penaeidae). 

 IV. Carbohydrate metabolism. Aust. J. Mar. 

 Freshwater Res. 16: 163-180. 



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